it is official Minnesota to play USC

by GopherNation on Jan 23, 2009 3:55 PM CST in Gopher Football Comment 5 comments

The U of MN Athletic Comm Dept has issued a statement confirming a home-and-home series has been scheduled with the University of Southern California (USC...the Trojans...yeah, those Trojans). Clearly USC was trying to upgrade their schedule as well and this was a win-win (insert lose-lose joke here).

2010 the Trojans come to Minnesota on Sep. 18th
2011 the Gophers head to Southern Cal to open the season on Sep. 3rd

This essentially replaces the Washington State games previously on the schedule which have been canceled.

If anybody wants to complain about our non-conference schedule they will need to find something else to gripe about. If you'd like you can complain about playing over our heads, but that may be a pretty extreme shift in you scheduling philosophy.

"Playing against arguably one of the best football teams of this decade really indicates the type of challenge Coach Brewster and our football program wants to take on," Maturi said. "I think this series should really excite our fans, our players and our potential recruits."

"This is a great opportunity for the University of Minnesota to match up with one of the finest football programs in the nation," head coach Tim Brewster said. "I think it will be extremely exciting to our fans and to all Minnesotans for us to play a team the caliber of USC.

"As I’ve said from the beginning, I want to upgrade our non-conference schedule to help with our national recruiting base," Brewster added. "I’ve said that I would like to play a marquee BCS opponent on national television one time a year. I’m excited about the series with USC and would like to commend Associate Athletic Director Marc Ryan on his ability to schedule those games."

We now have at least one BCS level program on the schedule through 2015, even without the USC game this is truly a slight shift in scheduling philosophy and is nice to see from a fans perspective. Winning games is great but playing games that will better prepare us for the Big Ten season is better in the long run.

2009 - Cal and Syracuse
2010 - USC
2011 - USC
2012 - Colorado and Syracuse
2013 - Colorado
2014 - Oregon State
2015 - Oregon State

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Schedule

This is great work by Brewster and Maturi. Good for fans, the team and good for recruiting. Absolutely the right thing to do.

by olygopher on Jan 23, 2009 6:26 PM CST reply actions

Really?

Is getting thumped by like 50 really going to benefit the program?

by NorseHawk on Jan 24, 2009 1:22 AM CST up reply actions

just jealous

Getting USC to come to your house for a game is a positive step for the program. USC does not go on the road for a nonconference game to play just anybody. Pete Carroll is no dummy. If he felt that a victory at Minnesota would not help his team towards winning a national championship, why would he schedule it? Why take a chance at a road game if winning it meant the same thing as winning at Tulane? Minnesota is going to be a lot better in 2010 and 2011 and everybody is acknowledging it (except for Iowa fans).

by Garrick on Jan 24, 2009 10:23 AM CST up reply actions